


Terrorshow

by AlysanneBlackwood



Series: Holidays [3]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' A.U., 'Crimson Peak' A.U., 'Edge of Seventeen' by Stevie Nicks, 'Scream' (1996) A.U., 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' A.U. (sort of), (I feel so bad about that but it comes with the territory), ALL ABOARD THE HMS ANGST, Abuse, All pairings save the first are pretty much only in the last chapter, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American Horror Story References, Because Crozier's the canon final boy but I think everyone else should get a chance too, Blood Drinking, Blurring of the boundary between fiction and reality, Cannibalism, Everyone has fun and is ridiculous, F/M, Final Boys, Forced Cannibalism, Four Boys and One Brain Cell, Free Verse, Gaslighting (I think), Gen, Ghosts, Goodsir suffers horribly and I'm very sorry, Grief/Mourning, Halloween, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Home Invasion, I put these people through so much suffering, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, In which Jopson is a vampire and Gore is a horny hot mess and I regret nothing (Chapter 12), Kidnapping, M/M, Mental Health Issues, More of them than I can shake a stick at, Most of these cross over with horror films I like, Nightmares, Poetry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Setting Things on Fire, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Tuunbaq is the Best Cat Ever, Unhealthy Relationships, Vampires, Witch Hartnell brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-24 12:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlysanneBlackwood/pseuds/AlysanneBlackwood
Summary: Or, Halloween Terrorfest 2019.Thirteen tales of darkness to make your very bones chatter!  Do you dare to brave the fear, the madness, the utter horror of it all?  Read along, my dear friend, read along...





	1. 'It's alive!'

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came to me when I really thought about the prompt: 'It's alive.' A phrase that can be said with surprise or fear, implying that what should not be alive is alive. Then what or who is alive? You will see.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for mention of suicidal ideation and the attempted burying of living people.

Dark. Damp. Tight. Too small. Where?

He slides his arm towards himself, rubbing painfully against the side of something, and manages to lay his hand against the impossibly low ceiling. He knocks it once -- twice -- thrice, and nothing happens. He tries to move forward, and his foot knocks against the ceiling. He is lying down, he realizes, he is lying down and cannot turn on his side and _ where is he? _ There is no light; the air is stifling, pressing down upon him. A moan escapes his lips, helpless and desperate, and he begins to kick and pound at the ceiling; he will tear a hole in it and crawl out into wherever he has been trapped. He beats at the surface until his fists ache and his feet numb, and finally, finally, the ceiling gives way and he coughs as a mouthful of dust streams in through the small hole he created. No light comes in through the opening; then, he supposes, he is inside somewhere. But he is not under the ground, he knows, for if he was he would not be able to see the faintest presence of a true ceiling above him. He knocks and beats at his prison for a moment more before he is able to first raise his arms and then the rest of himself out of it. His legs tremble, buckle, and he falls to the ground with a harsh, skull-ringing _ THUMP. _

He lies curled up, gasping, slowly becoming aware of his surroundings. When the pounding in his head dulls he sits up and sees where he is.

The walls are stone, the air musty, the floor completely devoid of furniture. The ceiling is vaulted; high and arched. Then he must be in a church. Slowly, legs still unsteady, he stands and turns to see what is behind him.

A coffin made of wood, a hole in its lid. A coffin. _ A coffin. _What he remembers last is the doctors’ faces swimming in and out of clarity as his body grew heavier and heavier and he could no longer keep himself upright. Surely they would have taken his pulse and realized he was alive. 

But there is no time to wonder now, when he is still trapped. He sees the door and stumbles over to it, only to find it locked. A window is lodged in the far wall, but it is too high for him to reach. There are cracks in-between the stones, tiny gaps through which it would be near impossible to reach. Even if he could climb up there and break the window, he would no doubt break his neck jumping down from that height, and he does not know what is on the outside of the building. 

Yet there is no other way out he can find, and he knows he cannot stay here. He must know why he was put inside there. Could they truly have mistaken him for dead? He wants to hope they did, but deep within himself knows that is the ideal. The doctors never liked him.

Steeling himself, he approaches the wall below the window and digs his fingernails, long and yellowed, into them. Once he gets a good grip he begins to pull himself, inch by aching inch, ignoring his body’s howls of protest. Fifteen stones from the window. Then ten. Then five, and he is clinging to the window-ledge for dear life, studying what lies beyond the glass. He cannot tell, for the night appears starless, and so he carefully draws back his hand and drives it straight through the window, gasping and gripping the ledge harder as the glass bites through his flesh.

The window is just large enough for him to put his head through it, and he looks down. The outside wall is stone as well, but the window itself is not wide enough to turn himself around on the sill. To know that he will have died escaping is but a poor consolation, but even so. He pushes himself upwards, using the outside wall as a support until he balances precariously on the sill. He inhales deeply. Night air, the first he’s felt in so long. Then, after hesitating a moment more, he flings himself from his perch and lands hard on the ground, pain erupting in his right ankle. He buries his cry in his sleeve lest anyone be about and drags himself upwards until he can stand by leaning all his weight on his left foot. He limps forth and once again takes in his surroundings.

A churchyard, as he suspected it might be, the headstones peeking up from the ground in dreadful warning. He walks on, gripping stones and trees for support whenever he can until he reaches the looming iron gates. Had he not twisted his ankle so terribly he might have been able to scale them, but he turns around makes for the back, hoping that the fence there will at least be lower. The back of the churchyard is enclosed by a low stone wall which he vaults over, his arms not being so incapacitated, and lands once again with another hard _ THUMP, _this time, luckily, on his back.

Once again he picks himself up and struggles around the wall to the front, where the church meets the street. Not a soul is about, save for the wind which wails and moans with a widow’s keen grief. Once again he does not know where he is. Where should he go now?

He cannot go home; it is not home anyway, having likely been repossessed all those months ago, and even if it was still his, Billy would not be there. He should not return to Briarcliff, he knows, and though the curiosity nearly overwhelms him, he resolves that he will leave London, on foot if necessary. He will steal away to the country and begin anew and forget about every bit of hell he was put through, if he can.

A carriage comes rattling down the road and stops in front of him. ‘Hey, mister!’ calls the cab-driver. ‘What’re you doing out here so late?’

‘Going home,’ he replies, feeling slightly dizzy. The cab-driver leans down and shakes his head.

‘You look awful sick, sir. I can drive you to the nearest hospital.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Briarcliff Hospital. Mostly they house the mad, but they take sick folk too for a day or two, so I’m told.’

‘No thank you, then,’ he says, but the dizzy feeling is worse by the second. His entire body cramps and throbs, his ankle the worst of all, and he finds he barely has the strength to stand, much less keep walking.

‘Sir?’ asks the driver concernedly as he sways back and forth. ‘Sir? Are you truly--’

That is the last thing he hears before darkness rushes into his eyes and silence into his ears, and he knows nothing at all.

***

‘…Yes, I’m afraid he’s quite unwell. He went missing a fortnight ago; thank you for returning him.’

‘I had no idea, Doctor, sir. I only thought him physically ill; it was God’s providence that you were nearest.’

The voice. He knows that voice: low and forever disapproving. No. Oh, God, please, no. Dread curling sickly in his belly, he opens an eye to see that familiar whitewashed ceiling, those familiar filthy walls. _ No. _

‘He’s stirring now,’ says Stanley’s voice, closer by now. ‘Go to the office by the front door. You’ll be rewarded for your pains there.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’ The driver’s voice now, he realizes, and then the receding click of shoes on the floor. When the sound disappears altogether it is replaced by the sound of a different pair, and Stanley’s face looms over him.

‘Well, Mr Collins,’ he says, ‘your return is quite the miracle, isn’t it?’

‘I did not escape.’ He knows he did not; he could not have, he couldn’t keep his eyes open when they surrounded him. ‘I was--’

‘Nonsense. You escaped your room and went running into the night without a soul wakeful enough to catch you.’

‘But…’ The doctors. ‘You were… I remember. You were _ there.’ _

_ ‘Where, _Mr Collins? Where was I?’

‘You were…’ Where was he? His room? Somewhere. Every room here is the same. ‘With me. When I fell asleep.’

‘And when did you fall asleep, and, I must reiterate, where?’

‘I… you were _ there,’ _Henry insists weakly. ‘You and Dr Ross and the others. You were there when--’

‘Mr Collins.’ Stanley sighs one of his heavy, deep sighs. ‘Remember that you are ill, and that when you are ill, the mind is subject to delusions. Two weeks ago, on the fifteenth when you were not in your room come morning, Mr Armitage showed us a shoe he had found in the hallway. It was your shoe.’ 

‘I was in a _ coffin,’ _Henry says, his voice rising in pitch. ‘I woke up in a coffin. In a church.’

‘Perhaps you found shelter there and climbed in because you have a subconscious desire for death. We shall have to take your sheets from you and give you a warmer robe.’

‘I don’t--’ _ Oh, but you have, haven’t you? _ After Billy. He hasn’t been the same since Billy. Then perhaps… there is so much he doesn’t remember anymore. No, he remembers their faces so clearly. Their words: _ Stay still, Mr Collins. You must sleep now. _But had they not said things of such ilk to everyone else here? He misremembers; he does not misremember. He does not know.

‘Sleep now, Mr Collins,’ Stanley says. ‘You will be moved back to your room in the morning.’

And Henry is too tired and too confused for anything else, so he does.

He wakes whilst it is still dark, and fears that he slept through the entire day before realizing that he is still in the same bed; they have not moved him. He sits up, blinking at the pale shaft of moonlight shining faintly through the stained window. At first, all is silent, but then he hears something faint. He strains his ears and when he still cannot make it out, he rises and walks to the door that leads to the cell-lined hallways.

‘… I don’t understand, Stephan. He should not be here.’

‘Well, he is here, Sir John, and what are we to do about that? We cannot keep him.’

‘That we cannot, but certainly his family will not take him, and he has no friends we know of.’

‘Why should they speak to us if we did? I can’t imagine there is anyone on earth who wishes to care for a madman.’

‘Nor can I. But he _ must _be dealt with, Stephan. Does he…’ -- and here the voice, which Henry knows to be Dr Ross, lowers -- ‘does he suspect?’

‘When he woke he would not stop insisting that he had not escaped. I do not know if I convinced him otherwise.’

‘Then we must be quick about this, and this time we must be sure.’

Then Stanley did lie. Relief floods Henry so suddenly he slides to the floor. But what will they do to him? What they tried to do to him the first time -- but what was that? Why can he not remember what he feels he should right away? The relief leaves him as quickly as it came to be replaced with tears stinging his eyes.

The door opens behind him and he hears another one of Stanley’s sighs. ‘Mr Collins, if you persist in being difficult, we will have to call a guard to watch you. Go back to bed.’

‘I heard,’ Henry cries, the words tumbling from him before he can stop himself. ‘I heard you and Dr Ross just now and I _ know _ I didn’t escape. What happened to me?’ he demands, fear of the worst he can imagine creeping upon him. ‘What did you do to me?’ _ Oh, God, _ he thinks, panicking, _ did they use me for their relief? _

‘I told Dr Ross of your death-wish, and we were speaking of moving you to a room closer to ours for your safety. That is all we discussed. Now come and go back to bed. You’ve had quite an eventful night.’

‘Dr Ross asked if I suspected. _ What _should I suspect?’ Henry hisses, standing. Stanley looks down his nose and rubs at his eyes with his thumbs.

‘Must I call someone to help you back to bed, Mr Collins? Or must I restrain you?’

‘I will go back to bed when you tell me why I woke up in a coffin.’

‘I have told you my thoughts on that. Now if you do not get back to bed at once and stay there the rest of the night, you will be restrained.’

‘You are lying to me.’

‘And you are ill and do not know what you say. Mr Pilkington!’ Stanley calls. ‘Please help Mr Collins to his bed and restrain him as is proper.’ Before Henry can even think of trying to run and confront Dr Ross, a slight man hurries in and takes his wrists in a tight grip.

‘Come along,’ he says, and forces Henry back towards the bed as Stanley leaves. Henry struggles, trying to tug himself out of Pilkington’s grasp, and Pilkington presses his fingers into the soft flesh hard enough to leave bruises. Henry bites his lips until they break and feels the tears beginning to slip down his cheeks. He does not want to weep in front of them, but terror has him in its claws. That he does not know what they did eats away at him worse than ever; he sees himself laid out unconscious in one of their private rooms, used for all manner of unthinkable things. 

In the instant Pilkington lets go of him for him to climb back into bed he runs, unable to stand the dreadful pictures that flash across his mind. He will know. He must know. Pilkington shouts and runs after him, but Henry is faster and dashes out of the room and down the hallway. If Stanley will not tell him, he will find another doctor, or a guard who knows.

Footsteps follow hard on his heels, but he forgets the sound in his determination to reach the doctors’ rooms. Blindly he bursts through door after door, the dread building in his belly again, making him sick. If what he thinks is true, they may do it to him again.

Finally he crashes into a room full of doctors -- Stanley, Ross, Parry, and all the others. Their faces surround him again, and he almost falls to the floor as the fear nauseates him to the point of doubling over. He swallows.

‘What did you do to me?’ he asks, his voice trembling, and then repeats himself, his voice rising in panic. _ ‘What did you do to me?’ _

‘Dr Stanley,’ Parry says coldly, ‘you told us you administered a high enough dose to keep him asleep for a month, if necessary. Why is this patient returned to us?’

‘I apologize, Dr Parry. I see he may have been more resistant than I expected,’ Stanley replies, equally cold. ‘In this case, what say you of what we should do?’

_ ‘Please!’ _ Henry’s voice has risen to a shriek. _ ‘What happened to me?! What did you dose me with?!’ _

‘A sedative, Mr Collins,’ Dr Ross says, coming towards him and restraining him as Pilkington did. He sighs. ‘If you insist, we shall tell you.’

‘We shall, Sir John?’ Parry asks, his voice frozen-over. ‘I should think it improper.’

‘He shan’t remember anyway.’

‘I shan’t remember _ WHAT?!’ _ Henry screams, and there is a pinch in his left arm. The heaviness in his body again. No. _ No. _ He is falling, falling to the floor and cannot raise himself. _ No. _

Ross kneels in front of him. ‘You have been a problem, Mr Collins, since you arrived here. All day you are sullen and will not do as you are told. You go about brooding over that little sailor and refuse to eat. We decided it would be kinder to dispatch you as quietly as possible.’

‘You… ’ His tongue is a weight in his mouth. ‘You… tried to… kill me?’

‘It is mercy, Mr Collins, when you consider what else we might do to you. We had you dosed with sedative to keep you sleeping and sent you off in that coffin you are so desperate to know about. Unfortunately you could not be buried immediately, but we expected you to be dead within the week. It seems we failed in our endeavour, since you are alive. That will be remedied.’

‘Please.’ A thick sob chokes in his throat. ‘I _ don’t want…’ _

‘Hush, Mr Collins,’ someone says above him. ‘Sleep now, and forget.’

He sobs again. The faces blur, the room dims. _ No. _ He cannot keep his eyes open. _ No. _ He is falling again, down some long dark passage, the bottom of which he cannot see. _ No. _

He sleeps.


	2. 'Never sleep again'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One, two, Freddy's coming for you...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm quite proud of how this one turned out.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual harassment/sexual assault subtext.

_ ScrrrrrreeeeeEEEEEEEEECH. _

_ Heh… heh… c’mere, kid. You’re gonna love this. _

He doesn’t see it, only feels the dull, sudden pain as he crashes stomach-first into a railing and tips over the edge, falling, scrambling for something to grab, but the steam and walkways are gone, replaced by blackness and deep, taunting laughter echoing all around him. Then _ THUMP, _ he lands not with the bone-shattering thud he expects, but he is sitting up on his mattress, moonlight pouring in through the window. His eyes swivel, searching the room for anyone _ (anything) _and find nothing, and he barely has time to register before a hand curls around his ankle in a vice grip and yanks him beneath the sheets. The cackling is close, there is something wet 

_ (his tongue) _

at his ear, and he is screaming, struggling to fight despite the unbearably heavy presence on top of him. The tongue probes deeper into his ear and something cold slides in-between his lips. He tastes metal. The glove. One of the blades is _ inside his-- _

_ I’m your boyfriend now. _ The man’s horrible face looms before Edward, skinless lips stretching into a rictus. _ Split you from your groin to your gullet and make you scream. Bet the last one never did that for you. _

(no)

The man’s grimace grows wider. _ You like that? _ he taunts, and the blade skids along the inside of Edward’s cheek, filling his mouth with blood. _ Could cut out your tongue, but that wouldn’t do me much good. I like the screaming. Could slice right through you, AHAHAHAHA! _ The cackling again, so close it reverberates right through him. The blade slides across his mouth, barely scraping his tongue, and scratches the inside of the other side of his face. More blood in there, too much, he can barely breathe; he’s choking on it. And he _ can’t move, _ he’s just _ lying there _petrified

_(MOVE FIGHT HIM DO SOMETHING BEFORE HE KILLS YOU OR) _

and silent, tears leaking from his eyes. Something sharp pokes his lower lip, and the blades are sliding down his chin, down his neck, his chest. White-hot pain rips through his arm, and he howls. _ Now, _ the voice rasps gleefully, _ how about your stomach next? _He lifts his glove from the dripping wound and flexes his fingers, creating a sickening noise before dragging them down further--

_ THUMP. _Something hits the floor and the weight on top of him is gone, there’s only his ceiling above him, the cold metal against his skin is gone--

His arm still throbs. He pushes himself up with the uninjured one, looking around before seeing what fell: George is curled up on the floor, having slid right out of his chair. Edward almost chokes on fury before the sides of his mouth sting and he stumbles out of his bed and runs for the bathroom, resisting the urge to cough on his own blood. George must hear him, because he walks in right after.

“Why didn’t you--” Edward spits blood into the sink. “Why didn’t you _wake me up?! _Why… why did you fall asleep?!”

“I’m sorry!” George comes forward, watching Edward in the mirror. “I just -- you looked okay and I was so tired too--”

“Right. I know.” Edward exhales, sinking down in-between the sink and the shower. “Sorry. It’s just that -- what he did -- look here.” He raises his arm. “He sliced me.”

“Shit.” George sucks in a breath. “You have bandages?”

“In the mirror.” His head spins. “Did -- did you dream?”

“No. That guy who keeps coming after you -- what’s he like?”

“Burned face.” Edward grits his teeth, pressing his hand down on the wound in a painful effort to stop the bleeding. “Raspy voice. He’s got this glove with knives -- he put them -- he--” Tears burn his eyes again, and he swallows hard. “He put one in my mouth. Scratched it up.”

“Oh, god. I’m sorry.” They look at each other as George kneels beside Edward, both knowing that those words aren’t much comfort, but there’s nothing else to be said. “Give me your arm,” he says, holding a roll of cloth bandage and a pair of scissors. They flash, and Edward shies from them before removing a bloodstained hand from the cut and showing it to George, whose eyes widen as he starts wrapping it up. A moment of silence, and then: “What else did he do?”

“I thought I woke up, I was in bed, and he grabbed me. I thought he was gonna… the stuff he said…” _ Groin to gullet. Make you scream. I’m your boyfriend now. _ The tongue, impossibly long and wet, sliding deeper into his eardrum. _ You like that? _

“You don’t have to say. I shouldn’t’ve asked.” George snips off the bandage from the roll. “What are you gonna do now?”

“I don’t know.” Edward wraps his arms around his knees, drawing them to his chest. Sol would watch him every night. Sol would wake him if he started screaming or thrashing around. Together they could--

Sol went to take a shower and didn’t come out until the water ran bright red. All cut up, chest ripped right open. What Edward remembers so clearly is the split second in which he registered the sight -- and his own screams, so far away he thought they were coming from someone else. The water, the blood running all over the floor, soaking through his jeans as he sat there screaming until his voice gave out and noiseless sobs jerked him back and forth. Taking off his stained shoes and socks and dashing home through the alleys barefoot without calling 999 because if someone remembered his voice they could trace it back and arrest him. Oh, _ god. _He presses a hand to his mouth as if to keep down the rising lump in his throat.

“Hey.” George lays a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know how much it’ll help, but you can come over if you want. Maybe it’ll throw him off or something.”

“Thanks. You should go home, though.” Edward gives him a small, watery smile. “He’s not after you.” _ Yet. _“Go home and sleep while you can. I’m gonna stay up.”

“You sure you don’t want me to stay and keep you awake, or come back with me?”

“Dad keeps coffee downstairs. I’ll be okay.” He tries to smile again, reassuringly, and fails. George sighs and nods, leaning in and pulling him into a tight hug which Edward is all too grateful to return.

“Just be careful, okay? I don’t want to be at your funeral anytime soon. Two’s enough for two weeks.” They hold each other for another minute and then George draws back and walks out, Edward following and watching as he heads down the stairs and out the door. 

Now alone, Edward rubs his eyes. Fuck. Coffee is disgusting, but there’s a chance it’ll keep whatever that guy is away. He will not, cannot sleep. Not until he can figure out who he is and how to get him, if he can at all. If not, well… _ nine, ten, never sleep again, _he recalls, walking into the kitchen and switching on the light. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot take credit for the 'groin to gullet' line -- it's from the 1992 film 'Candyman', written by Clive Barker and Bernard Rose. I also can't take credit for this story's main threat -- he's from the minds of Wes Craven and Robert Englund.


	3. 'They're here'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember to always lock your doors and windows...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I modeled this off of the short story 'Charlie's Girls' from Laura Elizabeth Woollett's excellent anthology 'The Love of a Bad Man.' 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for home invasion and some graphic sexual fantasy.

Restless is what we were. Restless, sick, lonely, down on our luck and good for nothing. Wandering the London streets, looking for anything to give us something to do, to feel, to be. Swiss Army knives in our pockets and anger tearing at our souls until we couldn’t breathe for the pain, the frustration at it all. 

Cor knows what to do with all that pain.

We know he’s completely mad. That doesn’t stop us from sticking with him. He gives us something to do, to feel, to be. He vents his rage and listens when we do too; he tells us that if we feel like going out and hurting someone we should because instinct and not society is what’s right. He gives us what we need -- for some of us, that’s love, for some of us, that’s a place to show all of ourselves, every bit other people say is ugly and wrong. He tells us there’s no good or bad because someone long ago decided what good and bad were. It was their definition. How can there be true good or true bad if everyone’s definition is different? 

It’s a Monday night in October when he gathers some of us -- Sol, Charlie, Rob, Ned -- and asks if we want to go out and help him with something. We say why the hell not. He says we dress up dark, find a house where everyone’s asleep and move around their furniture. Be stealthy, because if anyone finds you, you gotta kill them, and that’s not what he wants. Just make people scared is all. If we have to kill, do it and get the fuck out. We don’t ask him why. He’ll go off about himself and how everyone needs to be scared all the time and we’ll never get there.

We throw on the clothes he gives us, take our knives just in case, and pile into Sol’s car, driving for somewhere that isn’t too conspicuous. We’re practically buzzing, talking each other’s ears off and laughing at the stupidest things until Sol, who’s driving, stops laughing and tells the rest of us to shut up too so he can concentrate. We go quiet for a minute but another minute passes and we’re whispering like schoolgirls, sharing what we’re gonna do when we find the right house. 

‘You think you could stick someone?’ Charlie asks Ned, and Ned elbows him.

‘Why would I stick someone? Cor didn’t say to and I wouldn’t anyway. I don’t want to end up in prison.’

‘But what if you could do it without getting caught? Would you do it then?’ Charlie’s eyes are wide, his voice breathless. We roll our eyes at him. He’s the kind of sadistic fucked up you don’t want to come along for something like this because he’ll take the first opportunity to go for a kill. But we’d be lying if we said none of us had thought about that. What it’d be like to shove your knife inside someone and let their blood spurt all over you. Like when you jerk someone off and get their cum all over your hands. Kinda sexy, the more we think about it. We imagine stabbing someone over and over until we orgasm, driving the knife in deeper as we shake and groan. We wonder, if we really do have to kill someone, if we can stop in a park on the way back and make love to each other with the blood still drenching us. Now we’re all a little breathless, and angry at Charlie for making us think about it. If we get all hot and turned on we’ll get sloppy. 

Sol stops the car. ‘Here.’ We look to our right. There’s a small house, its windows completely dark. Whoever lives there is probably asleep this time of night. It’s perfect, and we all climb out except for Rob, who’s staying as our lookout and getaway if we need it. We don’t bother with the door and instead try the windows. The second one Ned taps on swings open, and we take off our shoes before climbing in one after the other. We stand between a living room and a kitchen, and we listen for anyone to make sure we’re safe. When we don’t hear anything, we start.

Charlie’s the first to try anything, of course. He goes into the living room and unplugs a lamp on a side table, carrying it into the kitchen and setting it on the counter. Then we’re all at it, taking books off the shelves, stacking chairs on top of each other, picking through the cabinets and rearranging their contents so everything’s out of order. There’s two staircases on this floor: one leading down, one up. We go up, treading lightly in the hallway. As we pass one of the rooms, something catches our eyes.

Light. The door is open about halfway and there’s light pouring out. Shit. We look at each other, unsure of what to do. Whoever’s in there, they don’t know we’re here, and if we’re quick we can hurry downstairs and drive back. They haven’t seen us, so we don’t have to kill them, and anyway, we’re not dumb enough to charge in there and murder for no reason.

But we remember what Cor’s said before about fear before when he goes off on one of his rants. About how there’s no better trip in the world than looking into someone’s eyes and knowing they’re fucking terrified of you. 

So we step into the light and peek inside.

Four people: three men and one woman. By the look of it, two couples. The woman is the first to see; she taps the guy who might be her boyfriend and he looks up too. Then they’re all staring at us, reaching for each other. We can’t help but grin to ourselves, especially when Ned raises his hand and gives them a small wave of his fingers and they flinch backwards. A minute more and we move on into the next room, rearranging as we see fit until we’re done with the upstairs. On our way back we stop by their room. They’re sitting exactly where we left them, completely frozen. We raise our hands in goodbye and go down the stairs, closing the window when we leave. Rob starts the car the second we’re all in, and then we’re heading down the road. We wait until we’ve turned the corner and finally we start clamoring over each other. 

‘Their faces,’ Sol cries gleefully, ‘they looked like they were gonna fall over dead!’ We want to roll down the windows and scream and cheer into the night, yell that we’re here and we’ll fuck you up so good. We want to take off our clothes and find moonlit trees to make love in. If we died right here and right now it’d be alright because somehow everything’s in place. There’s something in us that was empty and now it’s filled to the brim with we don’t know what, but it’s enough to make us feel new and clean and beautiful. 

We roll down the windows and let the breeze in, caressing our hands and playing with our hair. Maybe this is Cor’s way of reining us in, of getting us to think more like he does. We’d be angry at him for fucking with us, but that doesn’t matter when we feel like this, so wonderful we don’t have the words to describe it. It’s transcendental or some shit like that, we guess. But we don’t need to know what it is, we don’t need to describe it. We just revel, cracking each other up and remembering the beauty of those terrified faces all the way back to the flat.


	4. 'What I once used to dream, I now dread'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone took their love of horror movies too far, but the scares aren't over for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was actually tricky to write because I wanted to focus more on a moment than a proper plot, which is why this one's pretty short. A couple of lines here are from the 1996 film 'Scream', written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven. The 'Thomas' here is Jopson, because apparently I've decided the poor fellow didn't go through enough. And Hickey is the villain again by virtue of this show being short on them.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for guns, slut-shaming, and traumatic flashbacks/dreams.

_ Maternal abandonment causes serious deviant behavior. It certainly fucked you up. It made you have sex with a psychopath. _

Some nights he wakes up crying, some nights he wakes up terrified, and still others he wakes up furious, barely able to breathe and ready to kill him all over again. Shooting him in the head wasn’t good enough. 

_ You’re not fucked up like he said, _ Harry told him the morning after. _ You didn’t know. _

But why didn’t he keep suspecting? Why didn’t he keep thinking of it? How could he have been so certain it was Morfin? Why did he stand up there and swear it was him when it _ wasn’t? _Thomas sits up in bed, looking out the window. He dreamed it again. The same as every night this week. 

It starts, like it used to last year, in bed. His bed. Cornelius on top of him, kissing him senseless, hands creeping below his belt, and then--

_ We all go a little mad sometimes. _ _ Anthony Perkins, _Psycho.

It’s not his bed anymore, it’s Charlie’s parents’ bed, he’s covered in blood and there’s a click and oh god, the gun--

_ She flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something. And now that you’ve given it up just like your slut mum, we get to kill you. It’s a scary movie. The rules say that you die. _

The knife grazing his throat, pressing deeper, and--

That’s when he wakes up covered in sweat, the words ringing in his ears. He pulled himself together that night. Why can’t he now? Fury surges in him again, directed at himself more than anything: half for sleeping with Cornelius, half for being so angry at himself about it. _ Not my fault. Not my fault. (Should have known.) NOT MY FAULT. (If you’d followed your instinct, if you didn’t let him convince you.) NOT MY FUCKING FAULT. _

No matter how many times Thomas tells himself this, it still rings false. _ You knew when you saw that phone on him. You knew from the start and you still let him fuck you. You’re worse than Mum. She had standards; she didn’t let a bloody murderer stick his dick in her. _ The dreams, though, the dreams are the worst of it. They start like they used to, when they were good, when his clothes would straight-up vanish and Cornelius would appear to slide between his sheets. It’s not right. If he has to have these nightmares, they can at least be awful the whole way through and not make all the fucking guilt worse. Ha. _ Fucking _guilt. 

He brushes his hair out of his eyes, watching the moon rise higher. His eyes blink shut for a second, and then the fear shoots them wide open again. He is not dreaming about him. He is not letting the dread creep up his spine for the eighth night in a row. He’s just done.

So he keeps watching the moon as a cloud drifts by to cover it, and clenches his jaw every time his eyelids so much as flutter.


	5. 'You found me beautiful once'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, the things we do for love...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to be a different story, but I thought of this and I simply can't resist a good 'Crimson Peak' A.U. That being said, I feel a bit bad about this because I'm sure the Hartnell brothers had a fine relationship in real life. They've every right to haunt me for this.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for severely unhealthy relationships and implied (? Honestly I'm not sure how explicitly it will come across) incest.

‘The Navy man?’ John’s voice was low, hissing incredulously. ‘We discussed the Cracroft girl. Whatever has possessed you to decide that you will not have her?’

‘She has her aunt and uncle. What will they say when they cannot see her?’

‘Yes, and he has told you of his six siblings. What will they say, when they cannot see him?’

‘They live far and he does not see or hear from them save for a sometime letter. Were we to tell them it was his lungs that carried him off they would understand.’

‘It is too much to account for. The Cracroft girl is safer, we both know it;  _ why  _ do you insist upon this?’ John’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you fancy yourself in love with him, Tommy? Would you risk our necks because you think you’ll have a fairy-tale with him?’

‘Of course I don’t!’ In truth, he was not sure if he did or did not. ‘It is only that Miss Cracroft is so well-known to everyone. John shuts himself up with his books so much of the time that hardly anyone will notice if he is gone.’

‘You lie,’ John sneered, his face contorting in an ugly caricature of the face Tom knew so well. ‘I thought you knew what a terrible liar you were. Tell me,’ he demanded, staring so darkly at Tom that he resisted the urge to back away, ‘what do you truly think of Mr Irving?’

‘I think he is well enough for our--’

‘Oh, God!’ John rolled his eyes heavenwards. ‘You deflect. We have always told each other everything, haven’t we?’ he asked, his tone turned to pleading. ‘Please, Tommy. There’s too much between us for your carrying on.’

_ I am not carrying on, you are.  _ ‘I told you I think he is suitable for us. Did I not say he spends much of his time indoors? He is naive, and devout besides. He will not suspect. Miss Cracroft is too worldly; I fear she would find us out.’

‘Perhaps,’ said John, sitting down. ‘Perhaps she is,’ and he sighed, deeply and heavily. ‘Do you grow sick of me?’

Tom stared at him. ‘What?’

‘It’s always been your brides.’ John shook his head, reaching for Tom’s hand. ‘Miss Barry and Miss Gillis and Miss Andrews. Now you tell me you want a bridegroom. What am I to think else?’

Tom let John pull him closer, until there was not an inch of space between them. ‘I promise you it’s not that. It’s what I’ve told you, that he will not suspect for even a moment, even when he falls ill. And I know he will say yes if I ask him.’

_ ‘What _ have you been telling him?’ John asked, tightening his grip.

‘We talk of each other, and what is in his books, and God. That is all.’ It was the honest truth, but even so John scowled.

‘You have spent more time with him than I thought. Do you find him beautiful?’

‘I…’ Tom blinked, surprised. ‘Why should it matter? I don’t look for that in these affairs.’

‘Tell me now.’ The hand tightened cruelly again, until Tom felt horribly lightheaded and looked at the ground to steady himself. ‘Do you find him beautiful?’

‘He’s handsome enough--’

_ ‘Handsome enough?’  _ John echoed, once again furious. ‘Look at me.  _ Look at me,’  _ he hissed. ‘Do you think of him as you thought of me once? As--’ -- he lowered his voice -- ‘I hope you still think of me?’

‘Do you not understand,’ Tom asked, finally wrenching his hand free, ‘that I cannot merely ask this of him without knowing him first?’

‘ “Knowing” him?’ John’s laugh began loudly, derisively, and then quieted to an injured bitterness. ‘You’ve made a poor choice of words.’

‘You know that’s not what I mean. Would you rather I not wed at all?’

‘You will wed none but him?’ Another laugh, even harsher than the first. ‘Then I was not mistaken. You  _ are  _ in love with him, and you are sick of my company. You will use him to leave me. Do not contradict,’ John snapped when Tom opened his mouth to speak. ‘You know we are too familiar with each other for you to convince me otherwise.’

‘Why will you not see reason? I have told you everything -- I have said over and over why I feel Mr Irving is best for this endeavour -- I promise you I don’t love you any less for that!’ Tom cried, his sorely tried patience now entirely vanished. ‘He is naught to me; I am only doing what I did with the others. You know I am, and I won’t have our plans spoiled because you are spiteful,’ he could not resist adding. ‘What must I do to placate you about him?’

John looked up at him, his large eyes suddenly full of tears. Tom still never knew if they were real or not, yet they never failed to cause a painful wrenching in his chest. ‘Promise me,’ John said through his teeth, ‘that you will not love him. You will not take him to your bed. You said he is godly, yes? Perhaps there is a small grace -- someone like that will not spread their legs unless pressed to it, even after they wed. You will not object to my giving him anything that might help our cause. You will let me do as I have done, no matter how quickly I wish to proceed. When this is finished, we will go on as we always have, and we will not do this again until it is absolutely necessary. Promise me all this and you can proceed with him.’ He had taken Tom’s hands in his own again, this time far more gently, and was stroking the bones with his thumb. ‘Please.’

Tom swallowed. ‘Of course. That’s only what we’ve done before, is it not? Do as you wish when you will. I shan’t object.’ 

‘Thank you.’ John smiled a weak, miserable smile. ‘Well, since you have laid out such a compelling argument I will not say no. Go to him as you please, and take the ring when you need it. I’ll to the market. We’re nearly out of tea at home.’ He rose and left the small room, closing the door behind him. Tom watched the door after he went. For some reason he did not yet understand, he felt as though something in him was sinking down, down, down to some furious, terrified depths. He cast a glance over to the bedside table, where a small box housed the aforementioned ring. He did not have to pick it up to know how heavy it was, how much it had weighed down his brides’ delicate fingers until they could hardly lift their hands. Now would it rest on John’s.

He would not take it just yet, he thought. The time was not right. Another fortnight, perhaps. Another fortnight before the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real John Irving did in fact have six (surviving) siblings. He was apparently closest with his older brother Lewis. (Source: Franklin Expedition Wiki.)


	6. 'They're coming to get you'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your window was open. Now look at what's in front of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a part of 'They're here' from the point of view of the people inside the house. I initially intended this to be longer, covering the aftermath of the home invasion, but I received a comment from ImpudentGuttersnipe (thank you!) in which they said they liked the implication of a murder happening in the story. I didn't write it with that intention, but I liked the idea enough to make this shorter and more ambiguous in its ending. Again, thank you so much. Your comments on these have been making my days.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for home invasion.

They don’t hear the stocking feet hitting the hardwood. They don’t hear the shuffling of furniture, the soft patter of footsteps up the stairs. But when they see -- oh, when they see--

The eyes, _ good god, their eyes, _ John thinks, reaching for Harry’s hand. _ There’s nothing behind them. They’re dead. _Corpses’ eyes shining from the faces from living men, accompanied by delighted, childish smiles that threaten to break into high-pitched giggles. One of them raises his hand and curls his fingers one after another; Silna, barely aware of Harry gripping her shoulder, watches each finger as it bends in a grotesque parody of a wave. One of the fingers, its nails grown long and sharp-cornered, seems to point crookedly at her as it falls to the palm, and she leans back from it on instinct. His smile stretches further, and the other two follow in eerily timed succession. Then they walk away, down the hall, quietly as they came.

No one dares to talk or to move. They wait. The sound of something being opened, something being taken, something set down. And again. And again. And again. The strangeness only makes it worse, draws their fear to an unbearable height; _ what will they do next? What _

_ (who) _

_ did they come for? Will they come again? If they -- if we-- _

Harry bites his tongue to keep from making a sound when John’s fingers press down hard on the back of his hand and, when Silna tries to open her mouth to suggest something, finds that her jaw might as well be hinged shut. They throw each other sidelong glances, trying to converse from looks alone. There’s a phone on the nightstand. One of them can lean over, reach it, call 999--

The sound of footsteps and the idea is dashed. They loom in the doorway again, their corpse-stares gleaming in the moonlight from the hallway. They are still smiling, showing none of their teeth. They raise their hands. They wave goodbye.


	7. 'A disquieting metamorphosis'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Tell them we are gone. Dead and gone.' Dead, to be sure. But gone? Hardly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is rather late -- I get awfully neurotic when it comes to writing about James and/or Francis because however am I to do Mr. Harris and Mr. Menzies's performances justice? One simply can't put some of those facial expressions into words! (And don't take a shot every time I've written 'Francis' here -- you'll no doubt black out, but it wouldn't be a fic about our dear captains without them saying each other's names so many times, now would it?)
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for quite a bit of death.

The wind whistling past his ears is what wakes him. Above him, the endless grey expanse of the sky, beneath him the pebbles pressing into his back. He raises himself on his arms and, sitting up, realizes that the movement does not cause him the pain he’s been living with for God knows how long. He stands and the familiar ache in his bones does not make itself known. He takes a step, and another step, and finds he can walk without impediment. A memory comes to his mind, hazy for half a second before crystallizing.

_ ‘Then you are free, hm? Mine your courage from a different lode now -- friendship. Brotherhood.’ _

_ ‘Are we brothers, Francis? I would like that very much.’ _

Francis. Where is Francis?

James looks around him. The sky, the ground, the horizon and nary a soul in sight save for himself. How he came to be here, he realizes, he does not know; the last he remembers is the tent, the candlelight, Francis’s hand in his own. Something burning in his throat, a deep sleep. No matter to that. He must find the others, find Francis. So he sets out, walking in what he hopes is the direction of Back’s Fish River.

He walks and walks and still he feels no pain, and wonder how he’s healed so well.  _ No matter,  _ he reminds himself. He can think on it later, when he has the time. He can think on it when he has seen everyone set foot on English ground. 

Day turns to night and night turns to day before he stops and notices that he is not tired as he always was before. Another puzzling revelation to forget until the time is right. He should, he supposes, be grateful for this newfound strength. 

Another day and night he walks and, when he thinks he will never find them  _ (we were all so ill,  _ he remembers now,  _ how could they have gotten so much further?),  _ he sees in the distance a rounded shape. Whether it is a rock or something living he is too far away to know, but he treks on towards it. With any luck it will at least be something abandoned in their journey.

As he approaches he can see its fur; an animal, then, or one of the Netsilik. He does not speak the language, but if there is anyway he can make his intentions known, he will attempt to. They may have seen some trace.

‘Hello!’ he calls to the figure (a person now, he thinks), who does not take notice. He calls to them again as he gets closer, and still they do not turn around. They remain in their spot, hunched over, and James has to walk around in front of them to see their face. 

Oh. Oh,  _ God. _

Looking right at him-- 

‘Francis?’ James asks, his eyes stinging. ‘What are you -- where are the others?’ A question without a point. Dead, of course. But here he is, and here Francis is. A surplus of luck indeed.

Francis stares at him. No. He stares at the ground James kneels in front of.  _ Through me. He is looking through me.  _ James swallows, blinks his eyes once, twice, thrice. He says Francis’s name again and receives no response. He reaches out and lays a hand on his shoulder, feels the slope and muscle beneath layers of fur and still Francis does not so much as twitch. James draws a shaky breath. What is wrong with him?

‘Are you alright?’ Nothing. ‘Francis, I’m… my hand, it’s on your… my God,  _ I’m right here.’  _ It’s harder and harder to speak. ‘I don’t know where I’ve been or where everyone else is, but I’ve been walking for days. We can’t be so much further from the river.’ Still nothing. ‘Do you understand?’ He hears his voice trembling. ‘Do you… do you see me? My God, Francis, what’s happened to you? Have you lost your senses?’ The questions go unreplied, and his hand falls as Francis rises, walking in the direction James came from. James runs after, falling into step beside him and unable to keep back the tears despite knowing they will freeze to his flesh in this cold. 

‘Is it me? Is there something wrong with me -- damn it all, Francis, can’t you at least make clear that you can hear me? I’m  _ here.  _ I’m  _ right here.’ _ He tries to seize him by the arm and turn him round, but Francis slips from his grasp and keeps walking on. ‘Please. Please, let me --  _ what is wrong?’  _ James pleads, his vision clouded, at an utter loss for any other words. Is Francis angry with him? Has he lost all sense and cannot hear nor see nor feel? Has he gone mad?  _ Or is it I who am mad? Or am I in Hell, and this is my punishment? _

‘Captain!’ a voice calls behind him. ‘Captain Fitzjames!’ James turns around, relief and despair flooding him in equal measure: someone can see him, someone can hear him, but Francis cannot.  _ Then he is angry with me. What is it that I have done? How will I make it right, if he is this furious? _

Goodsir and Hartnell stand ten feet from him, their coats snapping in the wind. Goodsir walks to him. ‘He can’t see you, sir,’ he says softly. ‘I’m sorry. He can’t see you nor any of us.’

James’s mouth is dry. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Captain.’ Hartnell glances at Goodsir before looking at the ground. ‘What’s the last you remember?’

‘Sleep. I fell asleep…’

‘Sir.’ Goodsir shakes his head. ‘I don’t know how to tell you any other way. Captain Crozier is the only one left alive.’

‘Then you are…’ James laughs a laugh that rings half-mad in his ears and shakes his head back at him. ‘No. I must be dreaming.’

‘You’re not, sir. All of us, we’re -- we’re trapped here. Whether we’re our souls or ghosts none of us can say but we’re trapped here. We’ve been keeping an eye on him for some time now; we thought perhaps you had been luckier than we had.’

‘Then what?’ He is angry, all of a sudden; why, since they had to die, are they not relieved of this place? Why can they not know some semblance of peace, after everything? ‘What is there now?’

‘The rest of us,’ Hartnell says, ‘and not much else, I’m afraid. But, Captain…’ He swallows. ‘Will you come with us? We’ve a camp and we don’t need for food or sleep. Mr Bridgens and Mr Peglar have been retrieving the books we left behind.’

‘No.’ James can hardly hear himself speak. ‘I’ll stay with Francis. I’ll not be able to make trouble, will I, now,’ he adds wryly, his voice trailing off miserably to reduce the question to a phrase.

‘He’s alright as he’ll ever be,’ Goodsir says. ‘We find him every day. There’s a Netsilik band taken him in, Captain. He’s one of theirs now.’

‘And Lady Silence?’ James asks, and regrets asking when Goodsir’s face falls. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘She’s gone,’ Hartnell says. ‘They exiled her for losing the creature. We’ve yet to see her. But you’ll still see him every day if you come with us, Captain. We’ve missed you.’

‘I’ll not come with you right now. Perhaps I will find you in a few days, but I want to see him with them. I want to know that he’s found some kind of life here.’

‘Alright, then.’ The corners of Goodsir’s mouth lift in an attempt at a smile. ‘We’ll see you sometime.’ They turn and leave, trekking away to the east. James watches them; they seem to disappear into the encroaching fog after a while. He turns in the opposite direction and follows in Francis’s wake.  _ Please,  _ he thinks,  _ let him have some kind of family, some kind of joy with them. He needs it as much as any of us, perhaps even more so now. _


	8. 'Call in the spirits'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of ghosts nowadays. Are they in your house? There's only one way to find out.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for mention of murderers, rapists, and school shooters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just pure stupidity that I kept adding to, and I'm far too proud of it. It is also a modern comedy.

“This is the stupidest idea you have ever had.”

“No, that was when he talked us into eating from those cans and we all got food poisoning for a month.”

“I still think that wasn’t veal in mine. Goldner’s is people. It’s people and we’re cannibals.”

“It’s not people, George, enough with the Soylent Green bullshit,” Edward sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe I agreed to this.”

“You agreed to it because we need your house and you haven’t got any other friends,” Henry said. He frowned and leaned closer. “No wonder you don’t. You’ve got like, the worst case of Resting Sad Face. How can you go around all day looking like a kicked puppy?”

“I agreed to it because Sol’s in Gloucestershire visiting his aunt. If he were here I would have said no and spent the evening at his place.”

“And then you would have died,” said Henry, “because you would have fucked and then a murderer would have gotten you. Rules of horror, remember?”

“Like that hasn’t stopped _ you _from--”

“We’re going to die for this,” John interrupted nervously. “We’re not supposed to mess with spirits.”

“Please,” Edward snorted. “The odds of ghosts showing up are zero.”

“I don’t know about that,” Henry said, apparently deep in thought. “Didn’t you say your parents got this because it was way cheaper than it should have been? Property value dropped because ghosts. You practically live in the Murder House.” 

“I hate that season.”

“I still don’t understand why you think _ Hotel _is the greatest thing ever,” grumbled John, who thought the entire show was too ridiculous to be any fun.

“Because James Patrick March is hilarious, that’s why.”

“I thought it was because you think Evan Peters with a mustache and a weird accent is hot,” George said, and Edward whirled on him.

“I told you that _ in confidence!” _

“Well, we all know that I’ve got a thing for Sister Mary Eunice when she’s possessed, so I don’t know why you get to keep yours a secret.”

“Wait,” Henry said, an evil grin spreading across his face, “he told me he wished John Lowe was real so he could, and I quote, ‘rail me until--’”

_ “ENOUGH!” _Edward shouted. “One more word about this and the only ghosts in my house will be you three!”

“Alright, alright,” sighed Henry, throwing up his hands in defeat. “Lead the way, Violet Harmon.” Edward gave him a death glare and unlocked the door. 

“If I’m Violet, you’re Dandy Mott.”

“I look like Finn Wittrock? Thanks.”

“No, you’re really fucking annoying and sometimes I want to strangle you.” Edward walked through the door and the others followed. As much as he hated to admit it, Henry was right--his house was exactly the type to have ghosts. 47 Franklin Street was a gothic Victorian mansion in all but size, built of stone with one part of the building sectioned off into an honest-to-god tower with a balcony on its roof. His parents had loved the aesthetic and decorated the interior accordingly, and now he spent half his time at home wondering if he was supposed to inherit the place, marry some wealthy American heiress, and poison her for her money. Except he didn’t have an insane sister to screw, so he’d have to push his wife off the upstairs railing himself. Great.

“Wow,” John said as he came into the entrance hall. “Feels like the House of Usher.”

“Blame my mum and dad. They love that kind of stuff.”

“You hiding any vampire brides in this place?” Henry asked. “Sol will be furious.”

“No,” Edward ground out from between clenched teeth and wondering why he was ever friends with Henry in the first place.

“Where are we going?” George asked as Edward led them up the winding staircase. Edward didn’t answer and continued on his way until they reached his mum’s office, which had a door in the ceiling. Wheeling her chair over its general area, he climbed atop it (which was a bad idea of the highest order because it was a swivel chair and wouldn’t stop twisting this way and that) and, struggling to keep his balance, managed to get a hold on the door-handle and pull it open so he could retrieve the ladder which folded out downwards from it. John’s jaw dropped.

“The attic? You want us to go… the bloody _ attic? _There’ll be rats -- and cockroaches!”

“We got an exterminator the week we moved in, it’s fine up there,” Edward said. “Come on. You wanted a seance and the attic’s the best place for one.”

“Sounds good to me!” Henry chirped, and began his ascent. Edward followed, then George, and finally a reluctant John, muttering about how they would all die of rabies if the rats didn’t bite them to death first. Once they were all safely inside Edward turned on the light and pulled up the door. The attic was spacious and his parents had decided to use it as a storage space for everything they didn’t need all the time, so boxes were stacked up against the wall. Henry looked disappointed, and Edward rolled his eyes.

“What were you expecting? The bodies of my dead wives? Dracula in his coffin? Sorry.”

“Jesus Christ, we’re feeling feisty today. Let’s do this thing.” Henry sat down and pulled out his phone. “I’ve got the instructions right… here…” He looked up. “Come on, sit down.” They all followed his suit and looked to him for further instruction. “Okay, now we join hands.”

“If any of you jerked off before this and didn’t wash your hands after,” George said, “you have to tell me.” John gaped at him, aghast.

“You’re… it’s a _ school day! _What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Just a precaution.”

“I hate all of you right now.”

“Join hands already!” Henry barked, suddenly impatient, and, with much groaning and grunting, they did. “Close your eyes.”

“You better not be using this as an excuse to put a spider on my face,” John muttered.

“That was one time and it was the tiniest spider ever. Now shut up, we have to concentrate.” Henry shut his eyes and began to hum off-key. Edward resisted the increasingly strong urge to get up, open the door, and throw him down to the office. Maybe he should have cut class and taken a bus to Cheltenham so he could let Sol fuck him into oblivion. Or fuck Sol into oblivion, whichever. Either way would be incredibly preferable to Henry’s horrible scale-climbing.

“Should we have turned the lights off?” George asked. “I think the lights are supposed to be off for stuff like this.”

“Too late now, fuck you very much,” Henry singsonged, and resumed humming at a somewhat earsplitting pitch. He opened his eyes. “Spirits of this dwelling! We would speak to you!” he intoned, and Edward snorted. Henry glared at him and resumed. “We only need a few minutes of your time. Please grace us with your presence.”

“What if one’s a school shooter?” John whispered. “What if they’re all serial killers? Will we--”

“For the last time, I do not live in the Murder House!” hissed Edward, ready to drop his hands and throw himself down the ladder.

“John, you’re scaring them away!” Henry hissed in succession.

“He can’t scare them away because they _ don’t fucking exist!” _

And then the lights went out.

“The fuck?” Henry whispered delightedly.

“This is how I die,” George moaned. “Tell my dad I’m sorry about the time he found Billy Gibson about to blow Cornelius in my closet.” Despite the darkness, Edward turned to him.

“I’m sorry, _ what?” _

“We were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven and it got out of hand. All I did was make out with Charlie Des Voeux a little,” he added quickly. “And it sucked. He bit my tongue. I have a scar, if you wanna see--”

“No one wants to see your tongue scar, George; why are we talking about this when there’s a _ ghost?” _Henry squealed. “Just listen! I can hear it!”

Sure enough, there was a moaning from somewhere in the house, faint but creeping closer. John squeezed Edward’s hand tight enough to cut off the blood-flow, earning himself what sounded like a feral snap of the teeth at his ear. “Ned, did you just try and _ bite me?!” _

“Well, I can’t think properly when you’re _ murdering my hand!” _

“Who could it be?” Henry wondered aloud, seemingly oblivious to the distress surrounding him. “A man whose wife murdered him when she found out he cheated? A girl who was smothered by her father so she wouldn’t run away? A boy who fell off the roof? Candyman?”

“Candyman’s in America,” Edward grunted, trying to extract his hand from John’s death grip.

“Yeah, but he’s English in the short story. What if he moved back?”

“He didn’t because he’s not real -- _ ugh. _John, let me go!”

“Oh god, I hope he is,” whispered Henry, and shivered.

Edward finally pulled his hand free, groaning and flexing his fingers. “Please tell me you’re not into him.”

“You want James Patrick March to shove his tongue down your throat, I want Daniel Robitaille to tell me he wants me right here and right now in that sexy deep voice of his. We’re all a little weird. Now be quiet!”

_ “You _were the one who started theorizing--”

_ “Shut up!” _

“I hope it’s Betelgeuse,” said George. “He’s fun.”

“Why would Betelgeuse moan like that?” asked Edward, but John had already started singing.

_ “Panic and stress, oh, ain’t it the best? The sound of a heart exploding inside a chest--” _

_ “SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!” _Henry bellowed. “I can’t hear it anymore. You scared the ghost away.”

But there the moaning was again, now coming right up through the floor. On and on it went as they all fell silent, until a few minutes had passed with the source still unrevealed.

“Maybe we need to open the door for it,” John whispered, now positively strangling a white-faced George’s hand. Henry shook his head.

“It’s a ghost. It can just, like, float up or teleport.”

“Maybe real ghosts are different than fictional ones,” George wheezed, tugging his arm away from John fruitlessly. “Open the door.”

“No.”

“Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte,” Edward hissed, bled dry of every single drop of patience, “open the goddamn door so we can get this over with or I will honest-to-gods strangle you!”

“Fine, _ Dad.” _ Henry rolled his eyes and got up, walking over to the attic door and pulling it open. (The lights were, disappointingly, still working in the rest of the house.) A second of silence, and then he sucked in a terrified breath. “Oh, no. Oh, _ shit.” _

“What is it?” Edward rose and went over to him. “If you’re screwing with me I swear -- _ fuck!” _he yelped, seeing the source of the moaning.

It was no ghost that stared back at them. It was an enormous fluffy white cat, evidently lost.

Tuunbaq.

“No,” Henry whispered, backing away. “No, no, no. Oh shit, we’re stuck up here!”

“What is it?” George asked, dangerously pale. John made a nervous squeaking noise.

“The cat,” Edward said grimly. “Silna’s cat.”

“Silna’s cat?” John repeated.

“You know. Her cat who hates every single one of us.”

“Oh,” George mumbled, looking rather dizzy. “Her cat who… tried to chew off my arm…”

“John, let him go,” Edward snapped, still hanging over the edge of the open door. “Okay. Maybe we wait for him to leave?”

“He’ll still be in the house, he could maul us the second we think we’re safe,” John said, finally letting go of George’s hand, who flopped over onto the floor. “We should find stuff to throw at him.”

“Yeah, and if we kill him Silna and Harry never talk to us again.”

“That’s a small price to pay,” George squeaked from the floor. “I’m with John.”

Tuunbaq mewed and padded forward, climbing nimbly up the ladder and, before Edward could move, leapt onto his chest, knocking him down and meowing triumphantly, quite pleased with himself.

_ “Stupid… fucking… cat… get off me…” _

“I mean…” Henry grinned. “This is actually kind of cute.”

“Cute? _ Cute? CUTE?! _ I have a demon cat on my chest!”

“Yeah, but look at him! He’s all curled up and purring. Like a big fuzzy snowball.”

“I don’t care. Get him off me.”

“Just give me a sec.” Henry already had his phone out and was snapping pictures. “Everyone’s gotta see the latest installment in the Murdering Cat saga.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Edward hissed, flipping Henry off with both hands. 

“Ooh, sorry, I’m not willing to be a homewrecker unless you take me out a few times first. Now Fairholme from maths class? _ There’s _a homewrecker. He broke up James Ross and Ann Coulman last month.”

“How?” George asked. “Who’d he screw?”

“Neither. He told Ann he saw James making out with Eleanor Porden in the Tesco car park and she broke up with him.”

“Was James doing that?”

“I don’t know. Fairholme’s a bit weird, I think he just likes destroying people’s happiness.”

“Hello? Demon cat!” Edward shouted. “Get him off me!”

“He’s sleeping now,” John said, leaning over cautiously. “Awwww. He’s not so bad when he’s sleeping.”

“Again, I don’t care. _ GET. HIM. OFF. ME.” _

“Fine, jeez. Maybe we can just, like… push him off you, or something. If we’re careful he might stay asleep.” John cocked his head to the side, observing Tuunbaq carefully.

“Yes, great. Do that before he crushes my ribcage.”

Henry was the first to try, leaning over and cautiously prodding Tuunbaq with a finger. When the cat didn’t respond, he tried pushing him across Edward’s chest towards the floor. Still the cat slumbered. Another push. Another--

Tuunbaq was almost completely on the floor when his eyes snapped open and he launched himself into the air. _ “MOVE!” _George roared with the sudden, thunderous force of a drill sergeant, and they all scrambled backwards from the flying white blur, who landed in the middle of the floor with his head held high.

If cats could smirk, Tuunbaq was doing just that. With another pleased mew he descended the ladder and disappeared from their sight. One by one they crept forth from the corners and peered over the edge. Tuunbaq seemed to be gone.

“We have to look for him,” Edward said, and the others looked at him, utterly astonished. “I am not living for who knows how long in fear of being mauled in my own house.”

“It’s your parents’ own house, technically,” John began, and Henry elbowed him. _ “Ow! _Fine, let’s go. I hate this attic anyway.”

They climbed down the ladder, and, since they knew that splitting up always led to inevitable death in these kinds of situations, stuck closely together as they searched each room on the second floor, and then on the first. Even the basement and the tower yielded no sign of the cat, and once they came up from the former John pointed out an open window.

“He probably jumped out there,” he said. Edward blinked and stared at the window.

“That was closed. I know that was closed.”

“Magic,” Henry whispered, doing jazz hands. “Ghosts. Witches.”

“For the last goddamn time, my house is _ not haunted, _and your stupid seance just proved it.”

“But that window--”

“Can I play a little?” George interrupted, gesturing to the grand piano in the living room. (For some reason it had been gathering dust in the basement when they’d moved in. No one played it, but Edward’s dad thought it pulled the room together.) “We’ve just got the upright at home.” 

“Go ahead.” No sooner had George settled at the piano than the requests came flooding in.

“The Beatles--”

“Florence and the Machine--”

_ “Cabaret--” _

“Stevie Nicks--” At the last one George nodded and started to play, picking out some notes on the lower keys before beginning a familiar tune on the higher ones. Edward promptly burst into song.

_ “Just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, whoo, whoo. Just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, baby, whoo, said whoo. And the days go by like a strand in the wind, in the web that is my own I begin again--” _

“Jesus Christ,” said Henry. “Stevie you are not.”

“Yeah, and you can’t sing that well either. And none of us can dance. Do I have to sing this by myself? _ But that moment when I first laid eyes on him, all alone on the edge of seventeen -- just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, baby, whoo, whoo--” _

George, John, and Henry joined in the singing, and, if they hadn’t been so busy only slightly butchering those immortal lyrics, they might have noticed the yellow cat’s eyes staring at them from behind the grandfather clock.

They had spoiled his nap. Tuunbaq would have his revenge.


	9. 'I never drink wine'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That rundown house in the middle of nowhere? It's not abandoned like you think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured it was high time someone wrote something for this fandom based on 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.' 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for cannibalism, forced cannibalism, kidnapping, torture, and abuse.

_ GET INSIDE, TOMMY, IT’S ALMOST DINNERTIME! _

The words, roared at a harsh, angry volume, wake him with a jolt, and he tries to stand up. Instead he pitches forward and is barely caught and righted in time. 

“Don’t go struggling now. We’re just gonna get some food in you,” a voice tells him gently, and he looks up into a pair of narrow eyes. “You’re tied for your own safety, see? We can’t have you attacking us.”

Harry’s tongue is heavy in his mouth. “Where’s Graham and Charlie?”

“Charlie? Charlie went out to get some wine. Oh…” The narrow-eyed man clicks his tongue. “You don’t mean our Charlie. Your Charlie’s gone.”

“Gone… _ where?” _It’s a stupid question, and he knows it in the back of his mind, but it’s all that will come out of his mouth. 

“Gone to hell, of course,” someone else says, and a large man in a Marine’s coat walks in. “He wasn’t much use otherwise.”

“You killed him?”

“Well, what else?” says the narrow-eyed man, and turns to the Marine. “Sol, are Bill and Magnus almost ready?”

“Just about.”

The narrow-eyed man -- red-haired, Harry sees now, his nose sloping into a distinct point -- rubs his hands together. “Great. Dinner in a few,” he tells Harry happily.

“I’m not hungry.” Another stupid thing to say, and his eyes fly wide-open when the back of a large hand flies across his face. The Marine stands practically nose to nose with him.

“You’re eating,” he growls, “and you’ll be grateful for it.”

“Where’s Graham?” Something wet runs into his mouth. _ Blood, _he realizes dimly.

“Where do you think he is? Shut up and eat when you’re served.” The Marine turns towards a doorway. “Magnus, go and find Charlie. He should be back by now.” The sound of a door opening and slamming shut, and then again, and now there’s another person in the room, a rifle slung across his shoulder.

“Don’t go pointing that at him, Tommy,” the narrow-eyed man says. “We don’t want him losing it.”

“You think I’m stupid, Cor? Though I’ll wager he’s too out of it to make a sound. I knocked him a couple extra times for good measure.”

“Yeah, thank you. Go set the table. Bill’s almost ready and Magnus’s gone to get Charlie. We should be ready soon.”

Harry watches them talk, watches Tommy leave for the next room (the kitchen, must be), swallows his screams. Whatever this is, it’s happening, and if he’s quiet and waits for an opportunity to escape he might get out safely. So he sits, the rope chafing at his wrists, watching whilst the table is set and two more men emerge from the kitchen carrying between them an enormous tureen. A third comes in from the front door, holding two bottles of what seems to be wine. When everything is settled all of them -- Cor, Bill, Magnus, Charlie, Tommy, and Sol, the Marine -- sit down, serve the food, and start eating.

“Now here’s a problem,” Cor says, looking down to the end of the table where Harry sits. “You’ve got to eat but we can’t give you a chance to run, now can we? I think we’ll free just one hand; yes, that should do the trick. Charlie, you go,” he adds, and Charlie gets up and comes down to the end. He kneels behind to loosen the rope just enough, and the second Harry’s hand is freed he curls it into a fist and tries to jab Charlie in the shoulder. Quicker than a flash, Charlie’s standing and grinning a cruel grin, Harry’s wrist caught in his hand.

“Feisty, aren’t you?” he asks. “Do we need the hammer, Cor?”

Cor swallows his food. “Think we do. Magnus, would you do the honors?”

Magnus, who’s taller than the rest, Harry sees, leaves the room and comes back bearing -- no. No. No. _ No. _ Harry bites his lips, tastes more blood, bites his tongue until it nearly comes away. He tries to move his still-tied hand, tries to pull it upwards, and the rope burns worse than ever before. He tries to move his caught hand, but Charlie’s grip is ironclad. Magnus approaches, his heavy steps rattling the floorboards, the already-oversized wooden hammer growing larger with every shake of the ground. Harry’s eyes widen, _ oh my god, they’re going to-- _

“What do you want?” The words burst from him before he can think. “I’ll do it. Just don’t--”

“We’re not gonna kill you,” Cor laughs. “Not yet, anyway. We’re taking a precaution, is all. Go on, Magnus. Charlie’s got you.”

Charlie’s grin spreads wider and he brings Harry’s hand down flat on the table. Magnus raises the hammer. In the split second before it comes down Harry realizes what’s about to happen, and he’s screaming even before the pain explodes through his hand and spikes up his arm. One of them starts laughing and the rest join in, his other hand is untied and laid flat and another crunch and the pain’s on both sides and the tears _ won’t stop. _

_ “Ahahahahaha!” _One of them shrieks and cackles. “Do his feet next!”

“Shut up, Bill,” grumbles another. “D’you think he can run after that?”

“Maybe we should try that,” muses a third. “Get a proper hunt in.”

“It wouldn’t be a proper hunt. He’d barely get anywhere and it wouldn’t be any fun.” The tears are still falling, but Harry can make out who is who again -- it’s Sol who’s spoken last, he thinks. He squeezes his eyes shut, letting his head hang down. _ Breathe. Breathe. You’re still alive. And they’re wrong. You can move the chair out the door. Just use your feet. Use your feet _ \-- but he’s shaking so badly that he can’t do anything else. “Get his head up,” Sol snaps, and a pair of fingers grab his hair and yank. His head hits the back of the chair with a _ crack _he barely hears, his hands throb, more blood runs from his nose into his mouth.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Tommy complains to Magnus. “Now how’s he gonna eat? I’m not feeding him.”

“Bill’s finished. He’s doing it,” Cor says.

“What? I’m still hungry!” Bill whines.

“You’re always hungry. You’re eating us out of house and home. I can hear you sneaking down every night to raid the fridge. Do your bloody part and help someone else eat for once.”

Bill folds his arms. “Which one of us had to wrestle that screaming bitch and almost get our head bashed in?”

“Right, I forgot. Tommy, you do it.”

“I’m not finished.”

“You stood around while the rest of us hunted. Shut up and feed him.”

“I stood _ guard. _You could’ve been picked up if it wasn’t for me, with all the noise you made.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. _ One of you feed him already,” _Cor hisses, a knife gleaming between his fingers. “I’ll clear the table.”

_ “Alright,” _Bill growls from between his teeth, rising and taking a bowl with him. Harry looks into it. Meat floating around in broth. His stomach twists itself into a knot.

“I don’t want it,” he hears himself say, and he sounds so faint, like he’s got cotton stuffed in his ears. “I told you. I’m not hungry.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got to eat,” Bill says grimly, dipping a spoon into the stew. “Come on.” He pushes the spoon in Harry’s face. “It’s better if you cooperate.” Harry shakes his head and tries to turn his face away, but his whole head feels so heavy he can barely keep it up. “Hey!” Bill’s fingernails dig into his chin. “This is good meat. You know how hard it is to get good meat out here? We could be giving you a lot worse. _ Eat.” _ Harry presses his lips together, and Bill, hissing in frustration, smacks his head back against the chair and forces the spoon in. A strange, strong taste fills Harry’s mouth; he gags and almost throws it up before swallowing because he _ is _hungry after all, he realizes. How many hours has it been since he’s eaten?

“Give him some wine, too,” Charlie says, passing down a glass, and before Harry can try anything it’s being poured down his throat and it’s even stronger than the stew, tasting just like -- no. Graham. Charles. Gone. Hunted. _ No. _

He tries to throw it up but it’s too late; they’ve started laughing again, doubled over and screaming hysterically. New tears well up and boil over, obscuring his vision until he can’t see and the laughter goes on and on and on, reaching a fever pitch until it suddenly stops and the room is silent save for his sobs.

_ “You…” _ He can barely speak for the lump in his throat. _ “That’s…” _

“Didn’t Bill say good meat was hard to get around here?” Cor asks. He sighs. “Come on. Weren’t they awfully annoying anyway? You had to get sick of them sometimes.”

_ “Let me go.” _ Panic seizes him, forces useless pleas from his mouth. _ “Please. I can’t -- LET ME GO!” _ The laughter a third time, deep and echoing all around him. Bill raises the spoon again, the stew slopping over the sides as it shakes in his hand. _ “Nononono. Don’t make me. I won’t -- I can’t --” _Words fail him and all that come now are screams, until his throat is burning raw. 

“Shut him up!” someone roars, and he hears another _ crack _before the world goes black.

***

He runs his tongue over his broken lips, listening for the footsteps. Any day now it’ll be dinnertime. It’s been almost a week, he thinks. 

The footsteps mean different things. If he’s lucky, it’s mealtime. If not, it’s the knife slicing his finger. They say it tastes better fresh from the source.

He raises his hands to his eyes. Fourteen scars, he counts, and two wounds that are still healing. Cor made the last one. He always stays a long time, until everything gets fuzzy. He says it’s a compliment. Not everyone’s that good, and they’re so happy to have him that they’re taking him in. This is how they make him one of them, they say.

The footsteps come closer, and the door opens just a crack, blinding him with sunlight before a bowl and spoon are shoved inside. The second it shuts he snatches it, forgoing the spoon and drinking it down, meat and all. _ God. _ He’s starving.


	10. 'Sometimes, dead is better'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spells don't always work out the way you want them to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't quite an 'American Horror Story: Coven' A.U., but I did take a lot of inspiration from its depiction of witches and magic. And I felt I owed it to the Hartnell brothers to write them something a bit less damning after what I wrote for Day Five.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for grief, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.

John’s barely spoken in three weeks. He wanders aimlessly through the flat, sometimes making the silverware dance in the air, sometimes randomly vanishing and reappearing on the roof. Tom can’t hear a thing from his mind. What did he do wrong?

He’s never been as good at this stuff as John was -- _ is. _ Even after everything John can still stack all the chairs on top of each other and light the stove with a flick of his finger. Tom had studied the spell until his eyes practically bled, testing it on plants and the spiders that live in the laundry room. All that and something _ must _have gone wrong. That or John just won’t talk to him, which he doesn’t want to think about.

When he gets home from the bookshop and takes off his headphones there’s music playing from the kitchen. In spite of all the stress, he smiles. That’s the one song they could always agree on. He walks in and finds John sitting at the table, singing along and tapping a finger in time with the beat.

_ “Well, did she make you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusions of love? And is it over now? Do you know how -- _oh. Hi.” He sounds resigned, and Tom looks at the wall, suddenly embarrassed. “You’re home.”

“Yeah. You okay? You sound…” _ Tired. Depressed. I don’t know. Are you mad at me? _

“I sound like what?”

“I don’t know. Just tired, I guess.”

“I’m not tired,” John sighs. “I’m not anything.” He gets up and turns off the radio.

“‘Not anything’? What do you mean?” Tom sits across from John’s vacated chair, and John slides back in.

“It’s like… I burned my hand on the stove yesterday while you were out, and it didn’t hurt. It didn’t even sting. We went through three cans of coffee last week because I drank two and a half of them trying to make myself wake up. I thought I was tired. Turns out I’m just really fucking numb. I tried slicing my arm and there wasn’t anything. I could’ve chopped it off and there wouldn’t have been anything. Right before you came in I was wondering if throwing myself from the window would do something, or if it would just kill me again. I’m stuck inside and I think I’m going batshit.”

Tom looks down at the table, unable to look John in the eye. “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? I thought I did something wrong.”

“You were so happy when it worked,” John says quietly. “I was too. Or I thought I was. I didn’t want to ruin it for you. I thought maybe I could fix myself, or it would pass. But I can’t help but think, maybe I’d be better off dead again. At least then I’d feel the way I was supposed to.”

Tom blinks hard, trying to ignore the tears that want to fall. “I’m…” _ I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been selfish. _ Every single person loses their families and copes. _ God, you’re weak. _

“Don’t apologize. You didn’t know.”

“I should’ve. I should’ve tried it on a stray cat and watched it or something. Done more research. Talked to John and Harry; they know about stuff like this. I…” Tom rubs a hand over his eyes. “I just should’ve been more careful.” John doesn’t say anything to that. He doesn’t even nod. “Do -- do you really want to die? I can -- I can help--” He owes it to John, he figures. He’s the one who’s made him this way, who made him so horribly silent inside.

“I don’t know.” John’s sigh is heavier and deeper than it ever would have been before. “I don’t know. I’m staying for now, though. Another month or two and I’ll see. Maybe I haven’t found the right thing yet, maybe there’s something we don’t know yet.”

“Yeah.” Tom swallows hard. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

John raises his hand; the radio switches back on. Tom listens, tries to focus on the song. The first time he’s heard it since the funeral. Ashamed as it makes him, he doesn’t want to know what it’ll be like to listen to it without John. _ There has to be something. Please let there be something we can do. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based John's short monologue (of sorts) about not being able to feel anything on Madison Montgomery's monologue from episode seven of 'American Horror Story: Coven', 'The Dead', which was written by Brad Falchuk.
> 
> The lyrics I used come from 'Gold Dust Woman', written by Stevie Nicks and performed by Fleetwood Mac.


	11. 'Corruptible mortal state'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naught but a modest verse on the effects of lead poisoning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't write a lot of poetry, but I felt this was best written in free verse. Originally I was going to write something involving 'Faust', and then thought of how 'corruption' sometimes has the meaning of physical decay.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for graphic descriptions of the effects of lead poisioning and death.

We rot inside-out:

Flesh: our bruises, purple into blue into black; Death wrapping us in his cloak tenderly, slowly,

Mouth: running with scarlet, corrupting our kisses with iron; we knock our teeth together, how much longer is there to do this before,

Head: throbbing, pounding, sunlight seeping through our skulls, tears in our eyes, begging for it to stop, where are clouds, where are clouds,

Limbs: upright, we haul, another mile, another mile, seven-hundred-and-twenty-three, seven-hundred-twenty-two, seven-hundred-twenty-one, seven-hundred-twenty, stop, make camp, sitting or lying down brings no relief, all there has been and is and will be is the pain,

Stomach: crying for sustenance, we swallow down our death and stagger behind the tents, vomiting until there’s naught but spittle and air,

Mind: strangeness dancing on the edges of our vision, swirling colour taking shape as birds, dancing-girls, light-winged fairies and our homes, rising from the shale as if truly built there; we step forward, reach for the door-knob, find air and nearly weep from frustration; misery creeps up on us soft as lover’s footsteps, holds us in its embrace and doesn’t let go until

we rot outside-in.


	12. 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Love those twisted teeth,  
But I bet you're gentle,  
Your lips like a sheath,  
And your tongue supplemental.  
Then he plunged them inside,  
And as my world split agape,  
We made love in the sky,  
And now I'll never escape.'  
\-- 'Twisted Teeth', from '35mm: A Musical Exhbition', written by Ryan Scott Oliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a mix of the second part of 'Dracula' involving Dracula and Lucy (though far more consensual) and the 1992 film 'Candyman', written by Bernard Rose and Clive Barker. It was hard to write, and I'm quite proud of it.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for blood and blood-drinking.

_ Among the gravestones he wandered, nearly frozen by the wind and made desperate by the voice entreating him.  _ Come to me,  _ it called, low and warm,  _ and I will make you my bridegroom and give you gold and silver and jewels to wear upon your flesh so that I may see you wink like the stars when the night is black. I will give you a life a thousand times sweeter than the most wonderful you could ever hope to lead.

_ The eyes, the eyes, more perfect than the clearest glass, seemed to loom before him, wet with tears, begging a kindness. John steadied himself on a gravestone and found he could hardly draw breath. Thomas -- Thomas -- Thomas! the name echoed in his ears as if someone had cried it from far away. He moved onwards, gasping down the chill air, moving in what he thought to be the direction of the first voice. And there he stood, in the shadow of the enormous oak tree. He raised a pale finger and beckoned; John’s heart pounded dreadfully as he drew nearer, until all he could hear was the rush of his own blood in his ears as the tree’s shadow consumed him. _

_ On -- and on -- and yet, still onward! The eyes had caught the moonlight and shone silver, two guiding lights further and further into the darkness. The tree seemed to have disappeared, or grown, for the black was endless now. At last a pair of white hands reached out and pulled him close to the body to which they belonged. Coldness crept up the length of John’s neck. _

_ ‘You came.’ The mouth was at his ear. ‘You will have me, then.’ There was no question in the words, though John hardly minded. Never, he realised, had he wanted anything more than for the arms to wrap around him and bear him somewhere far away where he might live forever. There was something terribly, delightfully freeing in this sort of thoughtless surrender.  _

Thunder rumbled overhead, and a gust of wind nearly snatched the pen from his hand. Graham looked up at the sky; the clouds were darkening, growing heavy with the promise of rain. He scrawled a number on the bottom of the unfinished page and reshuffled his papers into proper order, capping his inkwell before dropping it in the pocket of his greatcoat. In truth he should not have even been in the churchyard at all but rules be damned, how else was he to know John’s path as he made his way to the most beautiful of ends?

He’d been writing it nearly non-stop for nigh on two months now, caught up in a frenzy of imagination. He remembered each and every one of his creations, every ghost and madwoman, and loved them as if they were his own children, but this was different. Thomas was different.

It was his eyes Graham had thought of first. The blue-green colour of sea-glass; wide and warm, eyes made to laugh and love. Then the rest of him: dark hair, a smile sweet enough to break a heart, and a hunger ancient and deep, leading him to consume and consume until it was at last, for a while, satiated. That was Graham’s final and greatest card to play, for who would ever imagine someone so beautiful, so innocent-appearing, so young and so kind, to be a creature who thrived from the most sensual acts on earth? Yes, sensual -- the very idea of someone sinking their teeth into his flesh and drinking the very thing that kept him alive, and moreover, the idea of trusting someone enough to do it, sent a shudder down Graham’s spine every time he thought of it. He had yet to arrive at a proper feeding in his novel, and often found himself wishing that he could experience it himself. He preferred to know what his characters went through firsthand, and this was no exception. It was folly to even think of it, however; were he to ask it of anyone they would no doubt think him mad, even if he offered money. He would have to be content with imagining it and trying to write it out in the best terms he could conjure.

When he arrived home it was completely dark, so he lit a lamp and continued with his work. He was in the middle of reading the pages he’d written in the churchyard for errors when he heard a tapping at his window. He ignored the noise, thinking it to be the wind rattling the pane, or a bird that had flown into it. But the tapping continued until it began to interrupt his concentration, and he went to see the source.

A figure stood on the ledge outside the window, tapping on the glass with their fingers. As Graham approached he made out the features, and nearly tripped over his feet in his surprise.

The eyes. The hair. The face. He knew that face. He’d made that face, written of it until his fingernails broke and his fingers bled and he woke with ink in his hair. Good God. Was he dreaming? If he was, oh, let it go on. He unlocked the window-latch and stepped back to give his visitor room. Thomas stepped down from the ledge, into the guttering lamp’s light, and Graham’s breath caught in his throat. The portrait he’d painted in his mind’s eye was naught now that he beheld the man in the flesh. He reached for him, and Thomas caught his hand. Cold to the touch, nearly frozen. At last Graham found the sense to speak.

‘How did you come?’ 

Thomas cocked his head to the side, eyes wide and unblinking. ‘You called for me. I was obliged to come.’

Perhaps another person would have pressed on with questions of ‘how’, demanding to know more of this strangeness. Graham was far too fascinated to care. ‘Is there something you want?’

‘I would help you to what you want, and I would help you to finish your story.’ He sat on the edge of the bed, making himself at home. ‘Ask me what you will.’

‘What is it like?’ Graham asked, before he could help himself. ‘To drink from another?’

‘It is not easy as you might think,’ Thomas said. ‘There are those who do not surrender easily. When they are willing, it is beyond what words can describe, but if I may try…’ His lips curled into a faint, wicked grin that surprised Graham. He had never written of that smile, so full of mischievous delight it made him smile back.  _ ‘La petite mort.  _ That is what it is like, for me and for them. I have asked them afterwards if I hurt them more than necessary, and they say that it does not matter. One told me that pain never came, that she felt she had nothing to fear at all. But that is only what they have told me, and it has been so long that I cannot remember my own turning. I imagine you would like to know what it is for yourself.’

‘I do.’ The words fell from his lips without thinking. ‘Oh, God. I do.’

‘Then let me help.’ Thomas’s voice was no more than a whisper. ‘And let me take you back with me.’

‘How could I come back with you? I’ve not yet finished my first draft.’

‘You gave me such life that I learned to make my own,’ Thomas said. ‘When we are together it will be enough to weave our own ending. But to do that I must first take what keeps you here. I have to take it all. Do you understand?’

Graham nodded. ‘Yes.’ Would it be death? He did not know, and he did not care. The desire to feel what Thomas had attempted to put into words had overcome him. It had overcome him two months ago, he realised, when the eyes first took shape in his mind. ‘Yes, I understand. What must I do?’

‘You’ll want to lie down for this. And take off your trousers.’ Graham obliged, removing the aforementioned clothing whilst the sound of his heart grew louder and louder in his ears.  _ Dear God, do not let this be a dream. Let this be real.  _ Through what magic this had come to pass he did not care to know; at least, not for now. Questions were for later. Whatever he wished to write, he would write with Thomas by his side, wherever they chose to dwell.

He lay down and Thomas turned himself round, crawling in-between Graham’s legs. He looked down, his gaze suddenly gentle, loving, and he lowered his head to give Graham a kiss before moving downwards. Graham strained his eyes to follow him and, in the moment before Thomas began, saw the white flash of sharpened teeth above his thigh. 

At first, a flash of piercing, tearing pain. Then --  _ good Christ. _

Graham’s eyes rolled back into his head. This he would never be able to put down on paper. This was not meant to be described to anyone secondhand; to even think you could try was the height of hubris. A guttural shriek tore from deep within him: he was shattering, flying apart into a thousand pieces, grasping for Thomas or something else to hold onto. Sun and moon and stars danced from the edges of his vision; flashes of gold and silver and white blinding him, swirling together into a light which grew and grew and grew until it engulfed him completely, filling every single vein with a fire that burned intolerably hot before receding to lick and caress at his insides. Wetness and salt on his lips; below, an endless sucking sound and starved, wanton gasps that sent violent shudders up and down his spine until he cried out again. The fire dying, turned to ash and embers to be consumed with the rest, replaced with a creeping coldness. His breath calming in his ears, and a sudden jolt as the eyes reared upwards to meet his.

‘You’re alright?’

‘I--’ Graham sat up, his head light. ‘I think I am.’

Thomas laughed, a merry, darkly chiming sound. ‘You’ll be good as new in a moment. Will you be ready, then?’

‘Yes.’ If he had not been sure of it before, this had convinced him. It had not been pleasure, it had not been ecstasy, but something perched high far above them, something so unparalleled it was beyond anyone’s comprehension. He must have more of it, whether it would come from Thomas taking him again or from taking someone himself. ‘Where will we go?’

‘The window-ledge is where I entered, and where we will leave. You know what lies behind, since you created it. It will be far more beautiful when you are there in truth.’ Thomas rose and sat at the table, watching as Graham redressed himself. There was no sign of what had transpired upon either of them save for two small puncture marks in Graham’s right thigh.

When he had finished dressing, Thomas took his hands (the cold did not startle him now, when his hands were equally such) and drew him to the still-open window. They climbed up onto the ledge and, still hand-in-hand, stepped off into the billowing winds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I have an explanation for why Gore is 'dull' here, but I don't want to spoil other people's ideas, so tell me if you want to know my idea in the comments.  
2\. The 'John' of whom Gore writes of is Irving. Perhaps his novel is about a vampire and a seminary student.


	13. 'This is Halloween'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Silna throw a Halloween party. What could possibly go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is just pure nonsense I wrote to amuse myself. Happy Halloween!

_ 31 October 2019 _

“What are you supposed to be?” asked James, looking up and down as Thomas and Edward came in through the door.

Thomas gave him a surprised look. “You really don’t know?” James shook his head in reply.  _ “I love rock ‘n’ roll, so put another dime in the jukebox, baby!” _

“No, that’s obvious. You,” James said, gesturing to Edward, who was dressed in a top hat and greatcoat, “who are you?”

Edward sighed. “James, don’t tell me you’ve never seen  _ The Body Snatcher.” _

“What?”

_ “The Body Snatcher.  _ You know, the film where Boris Karloff gives this doctor guy bodies and is obsessed with him.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“Then you’ll have to come over to our place and see it. Next week?” asked Edward, already walking into the house. Thomas shook his head, smiling affectionately.

“Just watch it alone unless you want to hear his theory on how the two main guys are exes, which is actually pretty plausible,” he said, and tilted his head to the side. “Wait. I didn’t ask you who you are, and I’m still not sure.”

An evil grin spread across James’s face. “Surprise, bitch! I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

“Oh, yeah. And I think Francis is staring at me?” Thomas’s eyes slid over to the dining room table where Francis was sitting and back again.

“No, he’s staring at me and counting down the minutes until he gets to screw me in this. He told me before we left.”

“Um. Thanks?” 

“You’re welcome!” James said cheerily, stepping to the side and letting Thomas through. He had barely gotten through the living-room before there was a screeching of tires so loud that practically everyone in the room jumped. Tuunbaq hissed and stood up on the sofa’s arm, his fur standing on end.

“Oh, no,” Harry whispered, going to collect the infuriated cat before he tore a hole in the couch and looking out the window. “They’re going to crash something going like that.” Another screech as the car skidded into a parked position, and then an infuriated shriek that could probably be heard all the way in Lancashire.

“JOHN HARTNELL, IF YOU DRIVE LIKE THAT AGAIN, I SWEAR TO EVERY GOD ABOVE, I WILL CUT YOUR HANDS OFF FINGER BY FINGER!”

“It’s part of the character!” John could be heard protesting, and then Tom shouting again.

“DON’T TELL ME THAT,  _ JONATHAN --  _ YOU DRIVE LIKE A FUCKING DEMON TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN -- YOU ARE GOING TO SET THIS CAR ON FIRE ONE DAY -- YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DRIVE--”

“One, the full name ultimatum doesn’t work when Jonathan isn’t my name. Two, you’re adorable when you yell like this.”

“Adorable?  _ ADORABLE?!  _ I AM NOT--”

“Come on, you know Mary Ann’s the only one who inherited Mum’s terrifying gene. Your face just gets all screwed up and cute.”

“Hey,” Harry called, opening the door and standing in the entrance, “you might want to get inside before someone reports you for being public nuisances.”

“Am I that loud?” Tom called, his voice finally dropping below a scream. 

“If you were any louder they’d hear you in New York,” John groaned. “I think my eardrums almost exploded.”

“They wouldn’t be in danger of exploding if you drove like a normal person. It’s a miracle your licence hasn’t been revoked.”

“Yeah. We should--”

“WELCOME TO A SHOW ABOUT DEATH!” a gleeful voice screeched from inside, and Graham all but slid into the doorway, leaving Harry a split second to get out of the way. “If you die during this party, the festivities will not stop.”

“Yes, it will,” Harry said. “Now come inside before someone gets arrested.”

They got out of the car; Tom headed for the house, and John stayed by the car, looking at it disappointedly. “It didn’t break down.”

“Wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles. Come on.” Tom grabbed his brother’s hand and dragged him from the house. Harry stared at them when they came up the stairs.

“Tell me you were not driving with those sunglasses on.”

“I told him to take them off,” Tom said. “He said it wasn’t, and I quote, ‘in the spirit of Elwood Blues’, and he wasn’t going to disappoint him. So we almost crashed four times on a fifteen-minute drive.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“We’re fine,” John said, walking inside. “Anyone else coming?”

“No, everyone else is here -- Tuunbaq, stop trying to attack them,” Harry sighed, trying to contain the squirming, hissing cat in his arms and close the door at the same time. “We talked to you about this.”

“I told you,” Silna called from the table. “He only listens to my dad.” The door now securely locked, someone turned the music, which had been playing at a decently low volume, way up. Tuunbaq screeched and leapt out of Harry’s grasp, searching for the culprit as “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” blasted at approximately one hundred thousand million decibels and Blanky, dressed in what looked like a nineteenth-century sailor’s uniform, stood by the speakers and nodded his head as if absolutely nothing was wrong at all. Francis grabbed him and pulled him backwards whilst Silna leaned over and turned the knob way down, restoring the momentarily-dashed order. 

Cornelius, for one, had somehow managed to find a perch on top of the kitchen counter and was telling some story to the group he had come with, all of whom were dressed as the Sawyer family of  _ Texas Chainsaw  _ fame to a disturbing degree of accuracy. (Magnus, in particular, resembled Leatherface so closely that no one was entirely sure that Leatherface hadn’t actually turned up. The chainsaw in his hands wasn’t helping.) The story seemed to involve some guy he knew and the Regent’s Canal. Charlie Des Voeux had gotten bored of said story and, true to the character of Nubbins Sawyer, was currently antagonizing whoever he could with a prop pocket knife. (Or at least it seemed like it was a prop.) Stanley, made grotesquely white by greasepaint, was occupied in eyeing the matchbox left near the stove. Francis and James had brought Neptune with them, and, while he was usually a very good boy, the dog had been growling at Tuunbaq all evening. If everyone wasn’t careful, there would be blood and fur on the floor by the end of the night.

“Hey!” Charlie seemed to pop up out of nowhere in front of John and Tom, waving the knife around in a truly irresponsible manner. “You want some  _ head cheese?”  _

“Stop being a dick,” someone grumbled, and Solomon, wearing a suit that looked like it had just been found in an attic chest, appeared behind Charlie. “And put the knife down before you stab someone.”

“That’s the  _ point,”  _ Charlie said irritatedly. “It’s Halloween. Scary shit is the point -- what --  _ PUT ME DOWN!”  _ he shrieked when Solomon lifted him into a bridal carry.  _ “ARSEHOLE! LET ME GO -- I WILL STAB YOU--” _

“Too late,” Solomon said calmly, picking the knife out of Charlie’s fingers. “This is mine now. Don’t contradict me, I’m your grandfather!” he added as a final word. 

“Isn’t the grandpa in that movie over a hundred?” John asked. “He probably can’t carry anyone.”

“I’m saving you from certain death; don’t tear my case apart.”

“Isn’t that a prop, though?”

“Charlie?” Solomon asked. “Is this a prop knife?”

“Cornelius gave it to me, I don’t know!  _ PUT ME DOWN,”  _ Charlie howled as Solomon carried him into the kitchen, presumably to interrogate Cornelius as to the function of the knife. 

The kitchen being thus commandeered, everyone else had gathered in the next two rooms, and now that all ears were safe from spontaneously combusting, the party had settled into conversation and dance, and would have gone on perfectly normally if not for a few things that turned it into a night to be remembered as long as anyone lived.

A hissing, popping sound came from the kitchen, followed by Solomon racing out into the dining area with Charlie still in his arms, some of the “Sawyers” behind him. 

“The stove was on fire,” Charlie said. “I think I saw Stanley climb out the window.”

_ “Was?”  _ Silna repeated. “It’s not on fire anymore?”

“It just, like… exploded for two seconds. Like a gas explosion.”

“Did we leave the stove on?” Silna turned to Harry.

“I don’t think so.” He shrugged and went in to look. “No, we didn’t. Someone would have had to light it with a match.”

“He took your matches too,” said Tommy Armitage. “I saw them in his pocket.”

“Wait.” Harry scowled. “Stanley set the stove on fire, stole our matches, and climbed out the window?” Yes, his co-worker was consistently disapproving and Harry was ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent sure he wasn’t capable of smiling, but setting things on fire? For no reason whatsoever? But sure enough, Stanley had been gone when he’d checked the stove. And the window was open. Good gods, was work going to be awkward tomorrow morning.

The spectacle being over before it even began, everyone was about to leave when someone screamed upstairs, a scream so long and loud it was amazing the screamer hadn’t run out of breath by the time Francis hurried up the stairs to investigate. He found John Irving staring into the open-doored bedroom, looking as though he had glanced into Hell itself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. John made a mewling sound and pointed to the bedroom. Cornelius stood in front of the bed, along with Billy Gibson. Both seemed to have hastily pulled their clothing on. Francis sighed. “You couldn’t go out to your car?”

“We all came over in Sol’s,” Cornelius said. “It would be rude.”

“And this isn’t?”

“Well yeah, but it’s not illegal. You can’t hang me for it.”

“Is that your criteria for what’s appropriate to do? Whether or not you’ll get hanged?”

“Yes.” Cornelius grinned his cheeky grin. “And you can’t hang me for that either.”

“What’s all this about hanging?” Francis asked Billy, who shrugged.

“I don’t know. I just came up here to get laid.”

“Get out of Silna and Harry’s room before you traumatize anyone else.”

“Yes, sir, Captain, Dad,” Cornelius said cheerfully, and marched out pulling Billy with him. “We’ll be in the coat closet.”

“No, we won’t,” Billy contradicted. “Sorry, John,” he added to the trembling figure now curled up on the floor. “We’ll lock the door next time.”

_ “Lock the door next time?  _ There shouldn’t  _ BE  _ a next time!” John shrieked, his eyes nearly falling out of his head. “You two are scorched on the insides of my eyelids for the  _ REST OF MY LIFE!” _

“It’s free jerk-off material, you’re welcome,” Cornelius called before Billy yanked him down the stairs. Francis followed them after seeing that John wasn’t getting up anytime soon, where everyone had dispersed save for Silna and Harry, who were talking over something clutched in Harry’s hands. 

“Where did you get it?” Francis heard Silna say.

“The Budgens three streets over. The brand starts with G or something.”

“And  _ every single piece  _ has bits of metal in it?”

“Every piece I’ve tried.”

“How do they even get metal bits into candy? How is anyone that staggeringly incompetent? Or evil?”

“I don’t know. We just have to get rid of it.”

“Burn it,” Blanky said, appearing between them. “Burn it all.”

“Burn it?” Harry repeated.

“Sure, it’s a great bonding experience.”

“He’s right,” Francis said, remembering the Great Cornwall Beach Bonfire of 2005. (To be fair, they had all been high out of their minds, which might have had something to do with the feeling of togetherness. And the bonfire had gotten out of control and they had all almost died.) “You have a fire pit, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s burn it.”

“I mean, if everyone wants to, I don’t see why not.” She cupped her hands around mouth. “We’re going outside for a few minutes; there’s something important to do. You want to join, join.” Surprisingly, everyone (even John, who had come downstairs) headed for the back door along with them; the coat closet’s door opened and out came John and Harry, along with Billy and Cornelius, who had made it there after all. (It was a very large coat closet.)

They processed into the backyard and assembled around the fire pit, Silna holding the candy bowl solemnly. “We were going to serve this,” she explained, “but somehow there’s pieces of metal in all of it, according to Harry, so we’re going to burn it.”

“Why are we burning it?” Thomas asked, leaning on Edward’s arm.

“According to Blanky, it’s good for bonding, and it’s more fun than throwing it away.” Silna poured the candy into the pit and scanned the crowd. “Miss Montgomery,” she called, and James stepped forward. “Will you do the honors?”

“Absolutely.” James showed her the cigarette he’d been carrying all night. “Who’s got a light?”

“I do.” Tommy held a lighter above his head. “What?” he asked when Graham gave him a side-eyed glance. “I don’t smoke. I just like melting stuff.” He came around and lit the cigarette. 

“On three,” Harry said. “One -- two --  _ three!”  _

James tossed the cigarette into the fire pit. And--

_ WHOOSH! _

The candy went up in flames that shot at least halfway to the sky, burning orange and gold. For a moment, all was silent. Then, over the snap and crackle of the fire, Edward’s voice.

_ “Love, love, love, love,”  _ he sang to a tune they all knew well, and Thomas joined in. Then Graham and Charlie.

_ “Drop out, drop out, drop out, drop out…”  _ Now two out of three Johns, Harry Peglar, and Tom added their voices. John Hartnell added his harmonica, playing for dear life despite not knowing a note of the song on his chosen instrument.

_ “Be in, be in, be in, be in…”  _ When the lyrics changed from one-word repetitions, everyone else joined the song.

_ “Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what,”  _ they sang to the sky and the roaring flames.  _ “Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what. Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what.”  _ By this time a neighbor was standing on their back porch, staring.

“Are we bothering you, Mr Ross?” Silna called to him over the singing.

“No, but you’re worrying me. What is this--” -- Mr Ross shaded his eyes from the flames -- “--some sort of Halloween ritual?”

“No, sir,” James shouted, pulling Francis into a dance that seemed to combine proper waltzing with tripping over one’s own feet. “It’s a be-in!”

“A what?”

_ “A BE-IN!”  _ Solomon yelled joyfully, whirling around with Edward and Thomas. “You can join us!”

“We’ll be quiet in a few minutes,” Harry said, going over the fence. “Sorry. We’ve gotten a bit carried away.”

“Make good on that,” said Mr Ross, and went back inside. On they went with the dancing and singing, until the flames died down and the candy was reduced to ashes. There now being nothing to dance around, they shuffled back inside. Blanky looked at his phone.

“Damn it,” he said. “Playlist’s run out.”

“We’ll sing!” Tom piped up brightly. “We’ve been practicing.”

“Go ahead, then.” Blanky shrugged, and the two brothers leapt up onto the table, ignoring Harry’s protests. Tom snatched Blanky’s phone, pulled something up on it, and nodded to John.

“A-five-six-seven-eight!” John counted, and country music began to play from the speakers. Blanky burst out laughing.  _ “Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’, though the streams are swollen, keep them doggies rollin’; Rawhide! Rain and wind and weather, hell-bent for leather; wishin’ my gal was by my side. All the things I’m missin’; good vittles, love and kissin’, are waiting at the end of my ride.”  _ He elbowed Tom.  _ “Move ‘em on!” _

_ “Head ‘em up!”  _ Tom ducked as an empty soda can came flying at his head. And another. And another.

_ “Head ‘em up!”  _ A fourth can whistled past John’s ear.

_ “Move ‘em on!” _

_ “Move ‘em on--” _

_ “Head ‘em up!” _

_ “Rawhide!”  _ By this time, at least fifteen empty soda cans were on the floor. “What the hell are you doing?” John asked.

“We don’t have beer bottles to throw at you,” Cornelius explained, tossing another can. 

“But there’s no chicken wire!” Tom cried.

“Empty cans won’t knock you out,” Charlie said. “We’ll stop when you sing something doesn’t call for it.”

“Fine.” Tom fiddled with the phone, and new music played.  _ “Come on; oh, baby, don’t you wanna go? Come on; oh, baby, don’t you wanna go? Back to that same old place -- sweet home Chicago!”  _ A soda can hit the back wall. “Oh, come on!”

“Think of it as applause,” James said. “Now keep singing!”

And so they sang, and ducked, and a wonderful night was had by all, in spite of the massive amount of cleanup the house would require, which they would all definitely have to come over for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Songs used here are, in order: 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll', written by Alan Merrill and popularized by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts; 'Hare Krishna/Be-In' from the musical 'Hair', written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado; the theme from 'Rawhide', written by Dimitri Timokin and Ned Washington; and 'Sweet Home Chicago', credited to Robert Johnson. The latter two songs are performed by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in the 1980 film 'The Blues Brothers.'  
2\. The Hartnell brothers had four additional siblings: Charles, who died at 15 months, Mary Ann, another Charles (who lived), and Betsey. I found the records using this link: (https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Gillingham_St_Mary_Magdalene,_Kent_Genealogy#Church_Records), clicking on the FREG link for '1558-1804, 1826-1833', putting 'Hartnell' into the search box for surname, 'Kent' in the box for county, and 'Gillingham' for the specific place. All six are listed in the 'row' links as having the same parents.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I steal the name 'Briarcliff' from 'American Horror Story: Asylum'? Yes. Yes, I did.


End file.
